Striving for the old-fashioned American dream…one chicken at a time….LOL

Making pickles pt. 2

Now that your cucumbers have had an overnight soak in lime water, you’ll see there’s a slight film on them so dump them in the sink and rinse them one by one (with a light scrubbing by hand) and then dump them into an ice water bath.

Sterilize your jars (I do it in the dishwasher as it keeps them nice and hot).

While the jars are sterilizing and the whole cukes are in the ice bath, I start my second batch (sliced dills for sandwiches this time).

We like our slices thick! I toss them in the lime water bowls until full, add more lime, and top off with water to soak overnight.

I use this mix for my dill pickles, and I make it in a cast iron enamel coated pot.

Pour boiling water over the lids and jar rings (in a large bowl) to sterilize them, too.

Jar the pickles one jar at a time. Really pack those cukes in there tightly because they’ll float if you don’t!

A WORD OF WARNING: if you run out of hot jars, you cannot just rinse a clean jar and use it. You can’t even warm it up and use it. The above is what happens (if you’re lucky – if not, the entire jar could shatter when you pull it from the canner, spraying you with boiling pickle juice!). I knew better than to do this but thought if I got the jar hot enough that it wouldn’t crack. It cracked the second it hit the rolling hot water bath! I wasted all those cukes.